California seems to have its rail lines crossed: Editorial

Sometimes you wonder if the people running the government listen to the people they’re meant to serve. And sometimes you wonder if the people running the government even listen to each other.

Consider a week of headlines about rail projects, and official discussions about where the funding should go, and what it says about California’s transportation priorities.

Here in Southern California, public-transportation officials in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties put the brakes on rail-line extensions that would have connected population centers to Los Angeles International and L.A./Ontario International airports and seem to have popular support. The officials cited the price tags, although it’s not clear that the money isn’t available.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown and other state leaders continued their desperate legal battle to keep alive the L.A.-to-San Francisco high-speed rail project that a majority of Californians tell pollsters they don’t want. Brown and Co. are still trying to shake loose the money to pay for it, although it’s increasingly clear there isn’t enough.

It would seem that if we took what money does exist for Brown’s bullet train, and put it into the expansion of regional rail, a lot of people would be happier.

Too bad it’s never that simple.

At least the regional rail authorities have been consistent with each other lately — consistently unambitious.

In a late-January meeting, board members of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority didn’t rule out — but certainly didn’t rally behind — proposals to extend the Crenshaw/LAX light-rail line into the airport’s terminal area. Those plans would require the Crenshaw/LAX Line to tunnel under runways and passenger areas at a cost estimated at $3.5 billion.

The alternative has the Crenshaw/LAX Line, which begins at Exposition and Crenshaw boulevards in the West Adams neighborhood southwest of downtown, ending at a station at Aviation and Century boulevards in Westchester. That’s nearly two miles from LAX, so the Crenshaw/LAX line would be kind of a misnomer. Airline passengers and airport employees would be ferried to and from terminals on a circulator train that would cost an estimated $2 billion less to build than the tunnel project.

This doesn’t sound like a big improvement over the Green Line, whose passengers have to ride shuttle buses to the airport.

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As L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas pointed out in an op-ed piece, Metro’s studies show rail lines directly into LAX would draw the most riders. “I believe voters may be more hungry for a rail connection to LAX than our leaders assume,” Ridley-Thomas wrote. Indeed.

Similar could be said of a move by the San Bernardino Associated Governments (SanBAG) Commuter Rail and Transit subcommittee to put off funding for a project that would extend the Gold Line past Azusa to Claremont and Montclair and then to the Ontario airport. The total price would be about $1.5 billion.

The committee is skittish despite the important role a rail connection would play in boosting business at the airport, with the spin-off economic benefits that would bring to the area. Ontario Mayor Paul Leon told reporter Liset Marquez: “People in the San Gabriel Valley understand the value of connecting to Ontario airport and are willing to step up and invest more to complete the project as originally intended.”

Which is where these regional rail projects are different from the bullet train. Ignoring the polls, Gov. Brown’s administration has gone to the state Supreme Court to fight two lower-court rulings that have held up the issuance of $8.6 billion in construction bonds. And Brown has proposed raiding environmental funds for bullet train money, a stunt that manages to draw fire from both Republicans and environmentalists.

If Brown and Southern California transit officials keep going this way, we’ll have a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco that few Californians say they want before we have trains to L.A.-area airports that lots of people want.

Yes, people understand that these projects would be paid for from different pots of money. It’s not as easy as scooping cash out of the high-speed-rail pot and dropping it into the regional-rail pot.